Rocky James Prinze

Hey, have you made the acquaintance of Rocky James Prinze? Yeah. Rocky James. It’s happened, it’s official. I don’t assume his formal name is Rockcliffe or anything.

So you’ve deduced that Rocky is the child of Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. The name itself is rubbing a lot of people the wrong way, but to me, anyway, Rocky is no more questionable than, say, Cash. It’s kind of trite and shallow, but hey, maybe someone’s a big Rocky fan or they love the mountains or something. After all, it worked for Reese Witherspoon (or didn’t, if you ask me. Tennessee Toth? No thanks).

My real issue here is that one of these things is not like the other. Specifically, Charlotte Grace, the Gellar-Prinze’s daughter, is not like Rocky James.

Why do people do this? Why do they choose two different naming themes for their two kids? Why do they assign one a pretty pretty princess name, as classical as they come, and then one gets “Rocky James”, fit for a country music star or particularly rugged HGTV host?

Did SMG and FPJr think they’d missed the boat on the allowances afforded them by virtue of being celebs, and decided to crazy it up a little? Or was it one of those awful situations where she got to name the daughter and he names the son? Now Charlotte has to be a good girl and Rocky can be the rebel. Is that fair? No. Is it likely? You know it is. Even if she turns out to call herself Carly or Charl or something, the deal is made!

People. Don’t DO this. When you name a kid, think about its future siblings. It’s a proven fact that people judge children based on their monikers, I know you know this – and if you name one of them Margaret and the other one Esmeralda, don’t come crying to me when they’re interpreting your parenting drastically differently.

You know what other celebrity couple has done this? Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner. Violet, Seraphina, and Sam. Those don’t go together! They’re not even in the same category! An English schoolgirl, a flamenco dancer, and your coworker’s buddy in Accounting? Did they just pick out of a hat or Jen’s Grade six diary? This is tough love, but it’s important. Maybe you started with a theme you don’t want to continue with, but that, my friend, is your cross to bear.

Look, this can go too far, though I’m sure there are girls somewhere named Chloe and Zoe. But you can make your kids’ names go together without matching. I never thought I would be complimenting the Beckhams, but Brooklyn and Romeo and Cruz and Harper are all fairly unisex, and pretty trendy, and have similar sounds in them. It’s actually pretty skillful, even if I wouldn’t choose the names myself.

If you’re going traditional, stay there. If you’re going family-heritage influenced so that your first two kids are Siri and Stellan, you may not name your third child Louise. I mean you CAN, but she’s going to hate you for it. Why give her another reason?